


Lazy Days

by for_darkness_shows_the_stars



Series: What Comes After [14]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, No plot just fluff, POV Outsider, Southern Water Tribe, also a bit of, bc outsider's perspective, druk has a lil sweater, gran gran made it, i'll allow pakku to marry gran gran ... if she can bully him, idk what this is, im just procrastinating all my other wips lets be fair here, it came to me in a dream, its always pakku bullying hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28453065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_darkness_shows_the_stars/pseuds/for_darkness_shows_the_stars
Summary: In the Southern Water Tribe, Chief Hakoda's assistant happens upon the relaxing Gaang.
Relationships: Kanna/Pakku (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Pre Aang/Toph Beifong, Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Series: What Comes After [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1981828
Comments: 17
Kudos: 165





	Lazy Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OwlWolf22091](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwlWolf22091/gifts).



> Here's a bit of fluff for [OwlWolf22091](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OwlWolf22091/pseuds/OwlWolf22091), who needs to learn how to write fluff, so that they may stop cleaving my heart into two every time they post something.

Nanuq discovered fairly early that the Southern Water Tribe was _much_ more relaxed than their Northern counterpart. Here, the Chief had no qualms about getting his hands dirty hunting. Every man, woman or child could approach him at any time. No one called his son Prince, nor his daughter Princess.

After a lifetime spent in the North, where Arnook was as cold and as distant as the ice floes of their home, it was odd to say the least, but Nanuq also discovered that he liked it. There was something in knowing that their leader considered no problem beneath his notice, cared to talk to every member of the Tribe, no matter their status—they didn’t even _have_ nobility here!

Therefore Nanuq enjoyed his new life in the Southern Water Tribe immensely, even if the Southerners’ informality still caught him off-guard here and there.

The day was beautiful, the sun was shining, the air was crisp with cold, the surrounding snow blindingly white—a perfect day to relax and do exactly nothing—when Nanuq was expected to give a message from an Earth Kingdom merchant to Chief Hakoda, as he had done hundreds of times before.

A bit of questioning later, and he found that the Chief was currently at home. That, once again, wasn’t an issue, because in the South the chief’s home was not a towering palace like in the North, but a simple house.

Masterfully made and beautiful yes—nothing less is to be expected of a home built for a family that currently boasted not one but _two_ master waterbenders—but still a house, at the end of the day.

He knocked politely on the door and received a croaky _enter_ in return. In the first room he happened upon, Elder Kanna reclined in a plushy chair, supervising with critical eye as Master Pakku tried to cook, dishing out advice, praise and criticism in equal measure. In her hands, ornate bone knitting needles clicked against each other, entangled in vibrant blue yarn.

Nanuq … stared, for what was probably an impolite amount of time, but what is one to do when one’s famously stern and traditional waterbending master who had been the fear of his childhood was now before him, ordered around by his wife, and made to do the ‘women’s work’ he so degraded and detested for decades back in the North. The Pakku of four years ago would have rather slit his wrists.

Elder Kanna quirked a brow. Nanuk quickly bowed at the waist— _what are you doing they don’t bow here_ —and escaped into the next room.

If he’d thought that seeing Master Pakku in an apron was the end of it, he was sadly mistaken. The next room over was a cozy-looking sitting room with a warm fire burning in the centre. Around it, six young people reclined on soft polar bear dog pelts.

The closest to the fire was the young Avatar dressed in thin orange fabric, lazing on his front, chin resting on his folded hands. On his back were propped the bare, tough feet of Toph Beifong, crossed at the ankles. A flying lemur lay curled up on her chest.

Then there was Master Katara, sitting cross-legged and leaning back on an armchair’s side. A tiny red dragon wearing a dark blue dragon-sweater slept on her shoulders. His soft snores and the crackling of the fire were the only sounds in the room. Master Katara’s long fingers carded though the raven-black hair of His Majesty the Firelord, who looked up at her with hooded golden eyes, head resting in her lap, arms wrapped snugly around her waist.

The chief’s son, Sokka—not _Prince_ Sokka, as Nanuq tended to say in his early days here—lay on his back, and rubbed circles into the back of Captain Suki, whose head fit under his chin, her arms ‘round his neck, their legs intertwined together.

Nanuq gulped. Very loudly, at least to his ears.

“Excuse me, but do any of you—” _war heroes, world leaders, high-profile politicians, most powerful people on the planet_ “ladies and gentleman know where I might find Chief Hakoda?”

Seven pairs of eyes blinked up lazily at him, five human, one dragon and one lemur. The Lady Beifong lowered one of her feet to the ground.

Nanuq gulped. Again.

Then, the Firelord slowly unwound one arm from Master Katara’s waist and pointed in the direction of a door.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Nanuq bowed—again, because seriously, fuck it, the most powerful people in the world were _right here, right now_ , lazing in front of the fire like puppy-kittens, and _what even was his life anymore?_

He ~~escaped~~ left through the indicated door. Stopped to breathe for a moment.

The handing of the message to Chief Hakoda in his office ended up _the least_ stressful part of this particular errand, which was not something Nanuq ever thought he’d experience.

“Here,” said the Chief, handing him yet another scroll. “This is my answer.”

“Right away, Chief,” said Nanuq. He turned towards the door, and hoped that the world would start making sense when he next passed through those rooms, and that the politicians, ambassadors, Avatars and Firelords would be regal, graceful, untouchable, _as they’re supposed to be_.

No such luck.

Yes, the lack of ceremony involved in the day-to-day workings of the Southern Water Tribe was incredible and liberating.

It was also more than a little terrifying.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Gran Gran is currently knitting a SECOND sweater for Druk. And then one for Momo.
> 
> [Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/stars-and-darkness)


End file.
